Even as Intel and its ecosystem partners (motherboard, memory and cooler vendors) are catching a breath after the smooth and trouble-free launch of Core i7 "Sandy Bridge-E" HEDT (high end desktop) family, there is news emerging about its successor. We won't play Captain Obvious in stating that the successor of Sandy Bridge-E is about an year away, but what interests us more are bits and pieces of information concerning platform longevity.

Even as Intel and its ecosystem partners (motherboard, memory and cooler vendors) are catching a breath after the smooth and trouble-free launch of Core i7 "Sandy Bridge-E" HEDT (high end desktop) family, there is news emerging about its successor. We won't play Captain Obvious in stating that the successor of Sandy Bridge-E is about an year away, but what interests us more is bits of information about platform longevity.

A slide scored by a reliable source on Taiwanese tech site XFastest reveals some important bits of information about the successor of Sandy Bridge-E, Ivy Bridge-E. First and most important, Ivy Bridge-E will use the same LGA2011 socket and Intel X79 Express chipset as today's Core i7 "Sandy Bridge-E". Most commentators had a hunch it would turn out this way, because Ivy Bridge (standard) shares the LGA1155 socket with today's Sandy Bridge processors, even if they will use a new line of chipsets and compatibility between today's 6-series chipset motherboards and tomorrow's Ivy Bridge LGA1155 processors will be subject to some conditions (such as UEFI with ME8L update).

Next up, Ivy Bridge-E will take advantage of the new 22 nanometer silicon fabrication process at Intel, allowing its makers to cram in more components (such as cores, cache, uncore components, etc.). The other parts of the slide are less relevant to us. They talk about current enthusiast products from Intel such as the Desktop Board DX79SI and SSD 510. Intel's SSD lineup is due for a complete overhaul in 2012 (more on that here).

The source also mentioned that Ivy Bridge-E is slated for the fourth quarter of 2012, while Ivy Bridge LGA1155 is on course for a launch over Q1 and Q2 2012.